Mullen: NKorea Report Shows Belligerent Behavior

WASHINGTON (AP) — The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said Sunday a report that North Korea is stepping up its nuclear program is more evidence of the country's belligerent behavior.

An American nuclear scientist who recently visited North Korea says he was taken to a small industrial-scale uranium enrichment facility and told that low-enriched uranium was being produced for a new reactor.

Adm. Mike Mullen, the top U.S. military officer, said such activities would violate U.N. security resolutions and agreements by North Korea over its nuclear program.

"From my perspective, it's North Korea continuing on a path which is destabilizing for the region. It confirms or validates the concern we've had for years about their enriching uranium, which they've denied routinely," he said. "They are a country that routinely we are unable to believe that they would do what they say."

Noting the sinking of the South Korean warship Cheonan in March, which killed 46 sailors and has been blamed on North Korea, Mullen said: "All of this is consistent with belligerent behavior, the kind of instability-creation in a part of the world that is very dangerous."